New Contact Center Research Shows why Telephony Still Matters

Contact centers of all shapes and sizes are going through a lot of change now, especially in adapting to the latest technologies. Things are happening quickly, and with so much being new, it’s hard to keep up with how customer expectations are changing. They typically adopt new technologies faster than contact centers, and this makes it harder for agents to provide great service.

With so much in play, it’s easy to lose sight of the basics and focus instead on chasing the latest hot trend that customers seem to be demanding. Aside from communications technologies, CRM is becoming more sophisticated, and there’s a growing need to integrate these pieces in the contact center. Decision-making has never been more challenging, but if you get it right, the payoff can be great.

There is no silver bullet for getting things right, and instead you have to address a diverse set of needs. To help you do that, I’m going to share some current research findings over the next few posts. For background, the study was commissioned by Interactive Intelligence, a leading contact center vendor I have closely followed for some time.

The report is titled
Customer Service Experience Study, and was conducted this spring, so it’s very recent. This is a follow up to the baseline study they did last year, and over time, I expect to see some interesting trends emerge. For the current edition, they compiled data from 1,462 consumers on a global basis, and I’m going to cite some high level findings during this series. Let’s start with why the phone is still important.

Don’t Give Up Your Phones in the Contact Center

Depending where you look, we’re now in a post-PBX world, and based on how most people seem to use their mobile devices, you would think that nobody makes phone calls any more. I’ve certainly been writing for a while now that the desk phone will disappear in time, and some businesses have already made such a transition.

Old habits die hard, though, and telephony remains the default mode for many situations, including customer service. Think about the state of mind customers usually are in when they reach out to a contact center. These customers are rarely looking for a casual chat, and better descriptors would be anxious, upset, confused, frustrated, rushed, etc. They need your attention, and they need it now.

As much as you might think the phone is passé – or soon will be, this is the mode customers will rely on when in that frame of mind. To illustrate, here are two highlights from the research.

Preferred Channel When Interacting with Contact Center:

Preference

Percent

Live agent - phone

61

Live agent – Web chat

15

Email

13

Website

6

Self-service

4

Social media

1

Most Valued Channel for Interacting with Contact Center:

Value

Percent

Live agent - phone

97

Email

91

Live agent – Web chat

69

SMS/text

44

Smartphone/tablet

44

IVR

37

Social media

35

These findings reinforce the primacy of voice when people need to communicate directly. First, the customer needs a real time mode, especially if their issue is causing stress, and that’s what telephony does best. Second is the intimacy of voice that allows for richer communication. Text or email may be more efficient, but all nuance is lost this way. Aside from cases where the customer’s issue is complex, there will often be language differences that are best managed on the phone.

As the data shows, while self-serve options help companies keep their costs down, they are low on the priority list with customers. Of course, these are good modes for routine forms of service, but they offer little in terms of the personal touch. This aspect of customer support is important for other reasons, and I’ll address those in my next post.

Another important finding is how low social media rates. We all know how popular these tools have become, and contact centers struggle to make them part of the customer experience. Clearly, customers do not view social media as a great channel for contact center interaction, but you should not discount its overall value in driving customer satisfaction.

I have data to share on that front as well, and after reviewing that as this series continues, you will better understand where to use social media in terms of managing the overall relationship with your customers. More than any other communications mode, social media has a role to play in both the customer service experience, as well as with what drives customer satisfaction.